


To Temper a Girl

by HeartOfTheMirror



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Black Widow training, Character Study, Community: mcuflashmeme, Female-Centric, Femslash if you squint, Flash Fiction, Gen, Manipulation, all the feelings, character flaws, extremely loosely interpreted prompt, have been beaten out of them, the Marianas trench of low-key asexual characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 07:56:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5820430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartOfTheMirror/pseuds/HeartOfTheMirror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even when things were (comparatively) simple, Natalia was never sure exactly how she felt about Yelena. Her sister. Her competitor. Her dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Temper a Girl

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm late to the mcuflashmeme bandwagon.
> 
> Week four's prompt was a story about three siblings. I naturally pushed that to the loosest interpretation possible.

Natalia was exceptional in many regards but she just couldn’t hold a candle to Yelena when it came to knife throwing. Yelena could probably pin the wing of a fruit fly at 50 meters if she set her mind to it. Natalia did not know many feelings as a child- liabilities to her important work, to her training- but she always knew the bitter citrus tang of envy. 

It made her mouth water to think about Yelena, all cool and confident with a belt full of knives and a target that no one else would even consider. Yelena was three years younger than Natalia and not nearly as good at foreign languages or espionage. As an assassin, however, Yelena was the envy of many of the girls at the Institute. 

Trainers admonished Yelena to keep her curly blond hair always tied back so as not to impede combat and to make her look more severe. But with it wafting around her cheeks and chin before bed Natalia always thought Yelena looked like Marilyn Monroe. It was a deep ache in Natalia’s chest that Yelena could be so beautiful and so skilled too. She wanted to be Yelena. Wanted to hold her and kiss her brow and sing her to sleep. Wanted to kill her in front of the trainers just to show them all who was better. She wasn’t a sadist- in these fantasies, she always simply slit Yelena’s throat during a training exercise or unloaded a bullet into the back of her head. 

Nice and easy. Painless and clean. It might even be a kindness considering the rumors Natalia’d heard about graduation.

Even when things were (comparatively) simple, Natalia was never sure exactly how she felt about Yelena. Her sister. Her competitor. Her dream.

Everyone knew how they felt about Claire. Either pity, contempt, or a mix of the two. Little Claire was truly pathetic. She heard trainers and doctors muttering to each other about how they’d taken Claire too late. She was nearly seven years old when they’d recruited her. She cried when her wrist was fractured. Cried when she was starved for more than three days for resistance training. She was a failure.

Any other girl who produced such lackluster results would have been killed. But it was important to the brass that Claire be fit for a very specific mission. She was to be proof of concept. Proof of power. So the trainers did everything they could think of to bleed the tears out of her and pour adamantium in their wake. 

Natalia never went easy on Claire they way she knew some girls would when they thought they could get away with it. Easy, soft, and weak meant torture, death, and disgrace. The only way Natalia could help Claire was by being even more relentless on her than ever. 

Natalia was the only one who knew what Yelena did for Claire. And hour and forty minutes after the girls were chained to their beds, when even the lightest sleeper had entered REM, Yelena would pick the lock that kept her where the Matron put her. Then she would slip into Claire’s bed, silent as a shadow. Two hours later Yelena would slip back into her bed and lock herself back where she belonged.

Natalia didn’t know what they whispered about, or if they were silent the entire time. She didn’t know if they traded kisses or just breathed together in the dark. But she did know that Yelena loved Claire. Loved her softness maybe, her humanity. Or maybe Yelena just loved how good she looked next to Claire. If they were being graded on a curve, which they weren’t, every girl in the room would love Claire. 

If Natasha told on them there was a good chance Yelena would be killed for her disobedience. At the very least Natalia would be unassailably at the top of their class. 

Natalia said nothing.

She didn't love her sisters. She didn't even love Claire. But she pitied her and Yelena was too beautiful to die. It would be like shooting the last of the tigers. 

Claire did not graduate. She was sent on her mission without the proper training and although she achieved her objective she was too slow and inexperienced to escape. The brass was very pleased. They wanted the world to know that the diplomat’s daughter had been the one to kill him. They wanted certain people to know that even a half-trained Black Widow was more skilled than an entire embassy's guard.

Natalia saw Yelena. She became harder, stronger, more ruthless than ever. 

It would have been a kindness.


End file.
